None of it mattered, in the end. We got the house fixed up and on the market, we managed to send out

We spent a large part of the tail end of 2012 working towards December first the day on which we would go on holiday. We had planned and booked the trip before realizing that having a running immigrant visa application might make entry into the US more difficult. We also planned and booked before we decided that I would quit my job on December 31st, 2012.
None of it mattered, in the end. We got the house fixed up and on the market, we managed to send out all Beloved s grad school applications, work was happy to have me for one single last week between the US trip and Christmas and even the pending visa petition did not get us (well, me) sent back at the US border. airline tickets flight Maybe it was the long lead-up during which we spent almost every night and weekend working, planning an arranging for all the Serious Future Things, maybe it was the fact that there were no family obligations, maybe it was the fact that we went to bright and sunny places, but I don t think I ve ever enjoyed a trip more than this one.
We prepared by booking a flight to Las Vegas, and two nights in a hotel on the strip. airline tickets flight For the second half of the trip we booked airline tickets flight two nights at the Grand Canyon and then we arranged a hotel for the night before we flew out. We bought a road map rented a car and most importantly.. brought some things to listen to. In our collection we had Civil Disobedience, by Thoreau, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula le Guin, a dozen episodes of This American Life,  an anthology of stories by Heinlein, airline tickets flight some episodes of The Wrath of the Khans in Dan Carlin s series of Hardcore History.
In the end we drove out of Las Vegas, through Arizona, into New Mexico. We hop-skipped through parts of the Navaho Nation, hit up Four Corners (so technically we were in Utah and Colorado as well, but it doesn t really count) and then back into Arizona airline tickets flight for the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert, Flagstaff and its observatory and its Holiday Parade, airline tickets flight the Grand Canyon and some tiny cowboy towns. We had some days to spare and set course for Needles and the region around Death Valley. Then, we sprinted back to Vegas and came home.
- If you are ever in Barstow in California.. Go to Lola s Kitchen. It s a teensy little place with no vegetarian food, but they served a chicken burrito that almost made Beloved airline tickets flight cry because it was so good.